Say It’s So, Joe! Say It’s So!

Dr. Heinous writes to alert me to this story (original story here), bubbling away quietly in the Austin tech community. Or not quietly, any more. Oh, I can only hope.

Itâ€™s no secret that things at Sony Online Entertainment havenâ€™t been gumdrops and lollypops. While EverQuest has been a bonafide success, Star Wars Galaxies has been an enormous screw up. The massively-multiplayer online version of the popular George Lucas films has been a fiasco, costing SOE players and money.

A mole sends us word that Raph Koster has left the SOE to start up a new games studio. Cindy Armstrong, head of Business Development, has taken an offer to become the new USA honcho for Webzen. Moreover, Lucas Arts is not extending their Star Wars license. Yikes.

The rot has started to set in, and the mole implies that itâ€™s only a matter of time before SOEâ€™s prez. John Smedley is sent packing. â€œPlace has been falling apart for a while,â€? writes our mole. â€œSmedley is not long in his job.â€? May the force be with you, John.

This should come as nosurprise if you’re a fan of the game or read this blog almost a year ago. (The two linked articles were on the old Post-Nuke version 1.0 of the website, and have been copied verbatim to the new version for linking.)

As Dr. Heinous says: “It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.” Of course, his definition of “nicer” is “more deserving.”

Finally, to everyone wondering where their metro news and commentary went, don’t worry, it will be back! It’s just a brief phase I’m going through. 🙂